Canadian Blogs

On Saturday, 28th August 2010 1:00pm - 9:00pm at the kwartzlab, The Kitchener/Waterloo Chapter of Ubuntu Canada will participate in the Global Jam. Everybody is invited. We will have lots of fun, socializing and will learn and teach how everybody can help and contribute to the Ubuntu project.

If you are in Quebec, please look at our friends event in that part of Canada!

read more

MagicFab shared 5 links. Code Crunching » Blog Archive » Decoding Apple’s Magic Trackpad Lifehacker Pack for Android: Our List of the Best Android Apps Ginn – Forcing non-multitouch-aware applications to support multitouch in Ubuntu | OMG! Ubuntu! YouTube – Multitouch Gesture injection in non-mt-aware apps : Inkscape YouTube – Multitouch Gesture injection in non-mt-aware [...]

Kwartzlab got a new type of event which has been beta tested early this month: The Ubuntu LAN Party! Eric organised this first event, which remained solely within the realms of kwatzlab and gave the kwartlab members the privilege to attend this premiere.

read more

MagicFab shared Bug #608382 in usb-creator (Ubuntu): “Maverick images build on lucid fail to boot – different syslinux version”. MagicFab shared 4 links. Code Crunching » Blog Archive » Decoding Apple’s Magic Trackpad Ginn – Forcing non-multitouch-aware applications to support multitouch in Ubuntu | OMG! Ubuntu! YouTube – Multitouch Gesture injection in non-mt-aware apps : [...]

MagicFab posted 3 items. rsandu: ♺ @WebUpd8: Urbi robotics software open sourced http://bit.ly/b2CPGO !gnu !linux !freesoftware andresmujica: Ahh focaccia focaccia grile … Yumi osamak: Listening to EbenMoglen’s talk at #debconf. Very interesting one. Made you change a practice? Tag with #EbenEffect ur1.ca/17a7v !gnu !fsf

MagicFab shared 2 links. Aaron Toponce : Identica’s Unwritten Rules facebook places add MagicFab posted rsandu: ♺ @WebUpd8: Urbi robotics software open sourced http://bit.ly/b2CPGO !gnu !linux !freesoftware.

MagicFab shared facebook places add.

http://stackexchange.com, famous for http://stackoverflow.com, http://serverfault.com and http://superuser.com has recently decided to create community proposed and driven Q&A sites. Interestingly, this has lead to two proposals that have both gone into public beta now, http://ubuntu.stackexchange.com for Ubuntu questions, and http://unix.stackexchange.com for Unix/Linux questions.

The Ubuntu proposal went in almost record time through all the proposal stages, while the the Unix/Linux site did not. This caused quite a stir. Miguel de Icaza does not appreciate the efforts that Ubuntu performs in the Linux community. Miguel and people like him are exactly the reason why we need both sites.

read more

MagicFab posted 2 items. mcgrof: Wishing I could turn my Nexus One USB endpoint as a GPS device, to test #GeoClue #GPS stuff. Let see.. cassidyjames: @stav, @bugabundo, can we update the !Android group details? A better logo, link, and description would be pretty cool…

MagicFab posted 2 items. cyphermox: please help testing the #NetworkManager 0.8.1 stack in !ubuntu #maverick rowi: #K-9 3.0 adds Support for inline PGP digital signatures and encryption with APG. Great! !Android MagicFab posted x1101: finally got MPD setup and working with pmix on my !android phone. I love using it as a media remote .

MagicFab posted czajkowski: @michaeldexter You get used to the @ being in the wrong place .

MagicFab shared 4 links. Filipe Abrantes | Home Zimly Media Player – Android app on AppBrain Video Player – Android app on AppBrain Stream Media Player – Android app on AppBrain

MagicFab posted evgeni: Just installed my first own !Android application! And guess what? It works! Now I just have to fix the layout slightly.. MagicFab shared 3 links. Zimly Media Player – Android app on AppBrain Video Player – Android app on AppBrain Stream Media Player – Android app on AppBrain

We are living in a world where the average person is carrying at least three portable computing devices. Okay maybe not the average person but most days I have three portable computing devices with me; a laptop, cell phone, and tablet. Usually these devices have some sentience information; contacts, calendar, personal photos, documents, contracts, banking information, etc. During last nights GTALUG meeting we had a brief audience chat on dealing your portable device when it is outside the confront of your home. So i thought I would share my two cents.

Similar to sex absents is the safe way not to lose your computer and data (just ask an iPhone engineer). If you can't live without your computer then do some serious auditing of your data. Do you need to carry around your personal (and corporate) accounting ledger, business contacts, calendar, proprietary source code, SSH keys, contacts, and other sensitive information. Also what I find helps is giving everything a value of money. For example I might have some source code for a client project I have been working on for sixty billable hours and haven't got paid yet. That would have a high monitory value, unlike an open source project. Something I should start doing is physically locking my laptop with a security lock (they are reality cheap compared to my laptop and it's data).

Backup, Backup, Backup. I am not going to go to much into this but have some sort of offsite backup system installed and working. Mine is a combination of Git/Hg, Dropbox, and S3.

• If I am working on a proposal it is saved to my Dropbox.
• If I am working on code it is pushed to a remote computer.
• If I can't push to a remote computer (SSH is blocked) I push to an S3 bucket.
• etc.

Encrypt your laptops hard drive.

Most enterprisy companies have remote wipe on Blackberry's Enterprise Server, make sure you can have the same. The iPhone supports this though MobileMe and Android has WaveSecure if you data is worth more than $200 these services are very beneficial. Also never be afraid of doing a remote wipe, backup your phone at least once or twice a week and use services that have some type of push to "the cloud" feature (I use SimpleNote which sends my notes to a remote web service).

Don't be paranoid, the majority of the people in this world are honest and good. If you have something telling them how to contact you if you device get lost, they will contact you. Just make sure they can easily find your information.

Gah, almost two months since I last blogged.

Here, have a couple of pictures of shiny things to tide you over while I think of something to say…

MagicFab shared 2 links. www.Fotomobil.at » wordpress openstreetmap plugin Map Compare | Geofabrik Tools MagicFab posted ovidius: @ryo IMHO we should just never take someone’s personal opinion as speaking for the whole !ubuntu community. Not even Mark Shuttleworth’s..

MagicFab shared 2 links. Gallery2:Security – Gallery Codex Gallery2:Security – Gallery Codex

MagicFab shared Kiko is Mr. Reis: The Diary.

MagicFab posted acotte: “Reject UltraViolet DRM | DefectiveByDesign.org” — Une campagne de la Free Software Fondatlion -http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ultraviolet.

I don't think I have ever written a review in my life but I just have to say how much I freaking (trying to stop swearing) hate my Sony MDR-NC7 Noise Canceling Headphones.

When I bought this product it was Boxing Day 2009 (if you are not from the Commonwealth Boxing Day is the day after Christmas when stores have everything they couldn't sell on sale) at Yorkdale. I hate malls, but for some screwed up reason the only time I go to malls is on Boxing Day, usually with my Stepmom, Beth, I don't know why I have an issue with crowds and I have a mild form of claustrophobia. But I digress so I am in the Sony Store (or Sony Style they have both) looking to purchase another pair of headphones, I already own a pair of the awesome old faction Bose around-ear headphones (which I would recommend to anyone looking to purchase headphones), for the TTC (the Toronto Subway). So I picked up the Sony equivalent that was about thirty dollars (a lot cheaper than the Bose but if I broke them or some how dropped them it wouldn't be an issue). When I got the the checkout the girl behind the counter suggested that I buy these Noise Canceling Headphones for the same price because they would cancel out the noise of the subway cars, streetcars, and bus. So on her recommendation I bought them.

I didn't expect the Noise Canceling to work that while, I remember that my Dad purchase a pair two years back to listen to his iPod on the airplane. He said they cut out most of that air sounding stuff that you get on airplanes but he could hear the flight attendants and the pilot over the intercom. But when I got onto my first subway ride I could barley hear any music. So I started to turn up the volume; I could feel the bass on my ears but I couldn't hear any music.

If you want really Noise Canceling Headphones I suggest buying a pair of Around Ear Headphones, or those Inner Ear ones (but those have dangers).